Archive for the ‘Reflective Practice’ Category

This is the fifth in a series of blog posts summarizing my reflections on what it means to provide learning opportunities for every student, every day. Find the series here, at #AllMeansAll

A slim majority of my physical science students are Caucasian. The rest declare their heritage as Hispanic, African American, Pacific Islander, Native American, No matter their background, they have a few things in common: most don’t read. Most don’t write, at least not more than text messages. And most can’t verbalize the importance of school. They just don’t know. I recently took a closer look at the achievement gap in these 2 classes, and looked at the stories behind the data (I’ve done this before.) I was very, very uncomfortable with what I learned.

Every dataset has a story. We usually look only at the data and ignore the story. For example, according to my original findings, and as approved by my committee of esteemed researchers in education and science, I could make this statement:

Pre-service elementary teachers showed a statistically significant gain in their learning about the moon and teaching elementary students about the moon by inquiry.

And this supporting statement:

The study shows that pre-service teachers average gain scores from pre-test to post-test increased by 7 points on a 21-item test.

If this were taken as the only finding from my dissertation, these pre-service teachers obviously demonstrated significant learning. All is well.

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Disclaimer

Anything posted here is my own opinion and does not reflect the position of my employer, any university affiliations, Twitter, NBPTS, Facebook, my husband, my dogs, and certainly not my cat. Clicking on links to books may take you to an Amazon link from which I receive a few pennies without increasing your cost.
~ Luann Lee